


Lullabies

by OniGil



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Bloodplay, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Extremely Dubious Consent, Lima Syndrome, M/M, Masochism, Rough Sex, Shattered Glass, Slavery, Stalking, Starvation, Sticky Sex, Stockholm Syndrome, Yandere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 02:49:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2050671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OniGil/pseuds/OniGil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The soft glow of Wing’s optics reflects on the razor-thin blade he sharpens lovingly. The light catches the curve of his mouth. “Go back into recharge, Drift,” he says softly. “You’ll need it.”</p>
<p> Drift and Wing, Shattered Glass, and everything that entails.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lullabies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThePeacefulKnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePeacefulKnight/gifts).



> Joint blame to [Kusu's beautiful art](http://kusuarts.tumblr.com/post/62201568751) and ThePeacefulKnight for shameless encouragement and [excellent SG!Wing headcanons](http://peaceful-knight.deviantart.com/journal/Wing-Shattered-glass-470733075). This took longer than it should have and it's a little weirdly structured, but it has yandere Wing, so it all evens out in the end.
> 
> Heed those tags. This IS Shattered Glass, after all. (Okay, I admit, after some point I was just trying to see how many tags I could list that started with "S.")

_lullabies_

 

* * *

 

            Systems reboot slowly from the crash. Error messages update and resolve one by one, flicking past quicker than an optic shutter. So Drift is alive. But something is different. He sends a query and gets a ping back: he’s been rebuilt. Extensively.

            “All systems are online,” an unfamiliar voice says somewhere above him. A sweet tenor. “He’s waking up.”

            Drift onlines his optics. Immediately he notices a difference in the filter settings. Why does he have red Autobot optics?

            Someone leans over him. A jet, from the look of his turbines and streamlined black plating, with nonstandard purple optics and a warm smile.

            “There you are,” he says, in that same sweet voice, like a swallow of smooth high-grade after a hard drive. “How do you feel?”

            “Alive,” Drift says with a croak of static, and immediately feels embarrassed to follow that musical voice with his damaged one.

            “That’s good,” the stranger says. “I thought you were dead when I pulled you out of that escape pod.”

            _Escape pod._ The phrase triggers a memory cascade: the attack on the ship, the evacuation order, the flight. He had already been badly injured by Autobots before he went into the pod, and the crash hadn’t helped. He wonders if anyone else escaped.

            “We rebuilt you. Do you like it?”

            Drift looks down at himself. His frame is much better quality than the one he remembers, sleek and stylized like the jet standing over him. His white plating has been painted an eye-catching shade of red. He looks more like a warrior… almost like an Autobot. Does he like it?

            “Thanks,” he says instead.

            The jet tilts his head, still smiling, but his optics narrow ever so slightly. “That’s not an answer.”

            Something about his field puts Drift on edge. “Yes,” he says. “I like it.” The jet beams, the shiver vanishing from his field as though it had never been. Had he imagined it?

            “Who are you?” Drift asks with a twinge of unease, looking around. There are two other mechs in here with the same intricate make, but neither of them is paying close attention. This is obviously a medbay: clean, white, sterile, but not very comforting. “Where is this?”

            “I am Wing,” the stranger says, helping him sit up with steady, sure hands. His fingers trail across Drift’s new armor and squeeze in a gesture that could be reassuring, or possessive. “And I want us to be friends.”

 

* * *

 

            “The Circle of Light,” Wing tells him as they leave the medbay, “is not associated with the Autobots or the Decepticons.” He casts a considering look at the red Decepticon emblem someone had seen fit to paint on Drift’s rebuilt chest. “We choose to keep our distance from the war. It keeps life comfortable.”

            “Wing,” a deep voice barks, so loud and so close that they both flinch. The voice comes from a mech who towers over either of them. The fins on Wing’s shoulders flatten meekly.

            “Dai Atlas,” he says.

           “Why is that _Decepticon_ —” The big mech spits the word like an insult. “—walking free? You know our rules, Wing.”

            “He’s our kind, Dai Atlas,” Wing says, the folded wingpanels on his back twitching rebelliously. “You said he was mine. You gave him to me.”

            “And I can take him away just as easily,” Dai Atlas says.

          Drift hates being talked about like he’s not even here, and hates more the casual talk of “giving” and “taking” him as if he were a cube of energon or a blaster or a datapad, but Wing ignores his attempt to speak.

            “He’s _mine_ ,” the jet says. His voice is still sweet, still musical, but now with a sharp cutting edge. “I can take care of him. He won’t cause any trouble. Will you, Drift?”

            He stokes his fingers down the red plating of Drift’s arm. Drift’s EM field crawls in instinctive discomfort.

            But he shakes his head. Better to take Wing’s side here, he thinks, even though he knows nothing about this Dai Atlas. Wing was the one to save him. His EM field is difficult to read, but there is no hostility in it.

            “You see?” Wing says, and suddenly Drift is locked out of the conversation again as Wing turns away. “It’s under control.”

            “I will hold you responsible for him,” Dai Atlas says, bending slightly over Wing, and Drift has never seen someone pull off such an effective threatening finger-point. Wing’s plating shuffles as his gaze drops.

            “Understood.”

            As Dai Atlas sweeps off, Drift wants to ask Wing what’s going on, but unease still tugs at him. Wing’s hand slides out to brush against his arm again.

            “This way.”

            As he turns, Drift has an excellent view of his back. The folded wings, and the sword resting in a channel between them. It seems impractically long, and it looks _ancient_. The black metal is scarred with cracks and… and Drift _hopes_ , really hopes, that those aren’t energon stains. Lower on Wing’s back, he’s magnetized what looks like the hilts to a pair of plasma-swords. And further down, on his legs… Drift wonders suddenly how many of what he took for elegant detailing are actually blades. How many does Wing _have_?

            He’s counted four more by the time they leave the building and his attention is thoroughly derailed. He stops in his tracks, staring up at a distant cavern roof studded with stalactites. And beneath them, spread out below the building where they stand, a city that looks as though it has been transplanted from Cybertron.

            “New Crystal City,” Wing says, his EM field flickering with a touch of pride. “This way, Drift.”

            Close-up the city is different than he’d thought. Plucked from Cybertron, yes. But not the glittering heights of Iacon or the strict grids of Praxus. It is dark, with a layer of grime more suited to the underbelly of Kaon. The mechs around them have a lean and hungry look. And there are organics, to his surprise: organics with chained limbs, wearing heavy collars, battered and dejected, trailing after more of the elegant and powerful mechs.

            Drift has a very bad feeling about what it means that he has been “given” to Wing.

            _It isn’t what it seems_ , he thinks, or rather hopes, optics darting nervously from face to face around them. Others stare back at him, curious, hostile, hungry, like laser sights jittering over his armor.

            “Stay close,” Wing says. “The city can be dangerous on your own. But as long as you’re with me, you’re safe.”

            One of his hands settles on Drift’s back as his EM field envelops them both. Some of the staring mechs flinch away, scuttling out of Wing’s path as he cuts through the darkness. Drift tolerates the touch, because it seems Wing is correct: the other mechs apparently have some respect for his claim.

 

* * *

 

            “And here we are,” Wing says, with a little spin to encompass his entire quarters. Drift explores the new environment cautiously, conscious of Wing’s gaze heavy on his back. Dimly lit, secure, with large windows blocked by closed shutters, but comfortable enough. There is a surprising number of blades of all sizes arrayed in racks _everywhere_.

            “Are you a fighter, Drift?” Wing asks, seeing where he’s looking.

            “By necessity, not choice,” Drift says. He hadn’t wanted to become a killer, but Optimus Prime hadn’t asked his opinion before starting this war.

            “We can fix that,” Wing says blithely, and tosses a cube of energon at him. “Here. You need your strength back.”

 

* * *

 

            There’s a little spare room in Wing’s quarters with its own berth where Drift bunks down for the night, exhausted from his repairs. Some instinct makes him hesitate over the controls, then gingerly key in a locking code.

            It turns out not to matter. Drift rouses groggily halfway through recharge, interrupting his defrag cycle, to find a pool of inky blackness in the shadowy corner of his room. The soft glow of Wing’s optics reflects on the razor-thin blade he sharpens lovingly. The light catches the curve of his mouth.

            “Go back into recharge, Drift,” he says softly. “You’ll need it.”

            Drift shuts off his optics but lies awake, listening to the faint scrape of Wing’s blade, and the jet’s soft humming of an unfamiliar Cybertronian lullabye.

 

* * *

 

            The next day Drift broaches the subject of leaving, very carefully, coming at the issue sidelong.

            “Are all of you warriors here?” he asks.

            “Most of us,” Wing chirps.

            “Why do you keep out of the war? The Decepticons could use you. You could make a difference!”

            Wing laughs as though Drift has said something completely ridiculous. “Why should we want to end the war? We profit from it well enough. Both sides pay well for weapons, information, prisoners…”

            “Is that why I’m here?” Drift asks, recoiling. “To be sold to the Autobots?”

            “Never,” Wing says, gazing at him with an intensity that lights a fire in Drift’s fuel tank. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Drift. How could you say that?”

            Drift steps carefully. “Even if the Circle won’t take sides, the Decepticons need me.”

            For the first time, Wing’s smile falters.

            “It isn’t that I’m not grateful for you saving me, but I need to get back. I need to do my—”

            “Why would you want to leave?” Wing asks. He is still smiling, but now it doesn’t reach his optics. His EM field ripples and seethes. “Don’t you like it here?”

            “This war is for the future of our kind. It’s not that I want to fight, but—”

            “There is no war here,” Wing says. “You’re _safe_ here.”

            “It’s not about being safe, it’s—”

            “I don’t believe this,” Wing snaps. He isn’t smiling anymore, for the first time since they’ve met. He looks like a completely different mech. “After everything I’ve done for you. I saved you, I rebuilt you, and this is how you thank me?”

            Drift takes a step back. “I appreciate everything you’ve done—”

            “If you really appreciated it, you would _stay_ , Drift!” Wing’s voice keys up towards a shout. His wingpanels flare out, twitching angrily. “You’re _mine_!”

            “What am I to you? A pet? A slave? Freedom is the right of—”

            With a _snap_ of energy, Wing pulls one of his plasma-blades. Drift stumbles backward another step.

            “Fight me,” Wing snarls. His tone is so different from the musical sweetness of before. “Your precious Decepticons need you? They simply can’t go on without your legendary skills? Prove it. Defeat me and walk away.”

            Drift holds out his empty hands in supplication, unable to tear his gaze from the glowing blade a handsbreadth from his chest. “I don’t want to fight you, Wing.”

            “Afraid? Of _this_?” Wing flicks his sword to the side, carelessly letting it skitter across the floor. In the same moment his free hand closes around Drift’s wrist, yanking him forward. Drift’s elbow joint locks and suddenly he is sailing through the air. He lands with a crash on his back. Wing drops down with a knee on his chest, pinning him.

            “We’re going to do this every day,” he says, and abruptly it seems like all the anger has drained from him, leaving him serene as ever. The smile is back, and the music in his voice. His black fingers caress Drift’s faceplates. “Every day, until you learn, Drift. You’re here forever.”

 

* * *

 

            Drift takes the first chance he gets, the first time Wing leaves him alone. His altmode tears through the dark city and to the surface. Surely there must be something else on this planet, some escape, someone who can help him.

            (Wing returns to his empty quarters and sighs. “So, that’s how it’s going to be.”)

            His pings raise a cautious response from a long distance. Not Cybertronian, but edged with the signature of the Galactic Council. Relief surges in his Spark: the Council may not be fond of Cybertronians, but they come down hard on all forms of slavery.

            A black jet screams past overhead and wheels around. Drift skids, but Wing has judged his transformation and landing perfectly, and one of his blue plasma-blades nicks Drift’s wheel. Drift fishtails and transforms, rolling over and over until he slides to a stop, coughing up dust. When he picks himself up, Wing is walking towards him, shaking his head regretfully. He looks calm again, serene as ever, but Drift can’t forget what he looked like screaming and furious.

            “Why did you have to run, Drift?” Wing asks sadly, pulling his other sword. “I didn’t want to have to do this.”

            Drift backpedals, limping, holding out his empty hands. “Wait. Wing, wait. We don’t have to fight. I won’t tell anyone what I found here, I swear. Just… just let me go. Please.”

            “Decepticons,” Wing sighs. “Always trying to find another way out. You can’t leave, Drift. I told you… you’re here forever.”

            It’s not much of a fight. Drift has always been a good fighter, but he’s never fought anyone like Wing, who wields his swords with a surgeon’s precision and a warrior’s eye for weakness. Drift hits the ground, his armor scored in a dozen places. Wing lands on his back, knee grinding into Drift’s spine.

            “Now you’ve got your armor dirty,” he chides. Drift tries to kick him. Then he screams as one of Wing’s swords pierces his ankle joint, pinning his leg to the ground.

            “You brought this on yourself,” Wing says sweetly, then twists the sword sideways. Drift scrabbles against the ground, keening, as struts crack and energon lines split and his foot parts company with the rest of him. Wing sighs over Drift’s agonized wail. “More repairs, Drift? I wish you wouldn’t cause so much trouble.”

            Drift is reeling and sick with pain, trying to drag himself out from under Wing’s weight. When Wing’s sword stabs through his other ankle, he finds himself begging half-coherently.

            “Please _please_ no Wing I’m sorry I won’t run please I won’t please don’t Wing _please_ I’m so sorry I won’t run I’m sorry…!”

            Wing’s free hand rubs soothingly between his shoulders. “How can I be sure, Drift?” he asks sadly, and slices sideways. Drift’s vision goes white as he chokes on a scream, tucking his face into his elbow. Wing’s hands turn him over, gather him up into an embrace, holding him close and stroking his finials.

            “Shh-sh-sh-sh… it’s all right now,” Wing whispers, his lips brushing Drift’s crest. He hums a few bars of his lullabye. “Shhhh. I forgive you.”

 

* * *

 

            Wing carries him back to the city while Drift hovers somewhere between waking and unconsciousness, and perches on the edge of the recharge slab while Drift’s feet are reattached. His energy field is warm and overwhelming and the only constant in the world.

            When Drift’s processor clears out the muddle, he is back in Wing’s quarters with a new lock on the door, and Wing is perched on the berth beside him, one finger tracing invisible glyphs on Drift’s armor. _Mine_. Drift edges away, but Wing’s smile just widens a bit.

            “Welcome home, Drift,” he says. “I missed you.”

            “Let me go,” Drift says.

            “You don’t really want to leave,” Wing says. “You’ll see. Don’t run off again, Drift. You know it hurts me more than it hurts you.”

            _Right,_ Drift thinks bitterly, phantom pain shooting up his legs. “So I’m a prisoner here.”

            Wing laughs. “Why would you think that?” He pulls a cube of energon from subspace. “For you.”

            His tone is sweet enough, his smile easy and genuine as he holds out the cube, but Drift still feels a tendril of cold wrap around his Spark. There are too many questions. What does Wing want from him? Is he a slave? A project? A pet? Where does he fit into this strange new world?

            One thing he knows for sure: he can’t trust that bright and innocent smile, because Wing had smiled when his sword had thrust through the struts of Drift’s ankle. The smile is a trap, a lure for the unwary.

            “I don’t want any,” he says. Wing’s expression doesn’t change, but his focus seems to sharpen, zeroing in like a sniper’s bead.

            “Are you sure?” he asks. “I even went to the trouble to get groundling energon.”

            Drift checks his natural impulse to say _I’m sorry_. He has nothing to be sorry for. He’s not hungry. “I don’t want it.”

            Wing’s smile flickers, coldness creeping into his optics. “Fine. If that’s what you want.”

            He tosses his head back and drains the cube in one slow, luxurious pull, exposing the delicate workings of his throat. He leaves the empty cube as he stands, plating ruffling in faint irritation.

            “This is a problem, Drift,” he says. “You’re ungrateful. We took you in, we repaired you…”

            “You cut off my feet,” Drift points out quietly.

            “That was your own fault. And now you won’t even accept this much from me?”

            “I don’t need fuel right now, it’s not—”

            “No, no, this is a teachable moment,” Wing says. “If that’s the way you want it, Drift, then so be it.”

 

* * *

 

            Drift should have _known_. He should have guessed something like this was coming, but he is still trying to find out where he stands with Wing, and he is unprepared. Because it seems that refusing energon from Wing once means he won’t be offered energon _at all_.

            For how long, Drift wonders? How long until Wing decides he’s proved his point? It isn’t as though he’s never gone hungry before. This he can stand. He can outlast Wing’s petty annoyance.

            Apparently not as petty as he thought, because Wing shows no sign of lifting the embargo. _He’ll_ drink energon, slowly, in full view, making unnecessary hums of pleasure. At first it is easy to ignore. But when Drift’s fuel tank starts pinging him every hour, it’s hard not to watch.

            Drift is careful. When Wing is gone, he investigates the jet’s quarters, searching every corner, testing all the cabinets, but everything is locked down tight. Not a cube left unattended, not a drop of energon. The message is clear: he gets fuel when Wing decides.

            After a few days Drift’s nonessential systems have shut down. He barely remembers burrowing into a corner, tucking his limbs protectively around himself. When he onlines his optics, the world is a collection of shapes that resolve into nothing. Time passes, it must, but at a crawl. Drift can think of nothing but the burn in his fuel tanks, the incessant alerts pinging his processor. _Energy levels dropping_ becomes _Energy levels critical._ And it hurts—oh, it _hurts_ —

            When someone touches him, Drift is too far gone to know what is happening. He registers the touch, feels himself being moved. Black shapes swim before his optics, and a purple glow. A curl of fear in his Spark, muted by hunger. Somewhere, distant, there are soothing sounds. Hands on his helm, stroking his finials.

            Something drips onto his mouthplates. Drift’s glossa flicks out to snatch it away. _Energon._ He gives a weak moan, head tilting up automatically to catch more drops in his open mouth. Something touches his lips and Drift latches onto the energy source, making another helpless noise.

            Energon. There’s something about it, not quite what he’s used to consuming. It’s a taste he knows, somehow, but his processor is still too muddled to work it out. He drinks greedily, though the flow comes slowly, not the great gulps he wants. Slowly, piece by piece, he returns to himself. He knows where he is: lying on Wing’s berth, his head propped up in Wing’s lap. The hand stroking his finials is Wing’s. The sounds he hears… the _sounds_ … a lullabye, crooned soft and low as Wing curls over and around him. Slow and subtle Cybertronian harmonics to keep him relaxed. And he is, for the moment, content to lie here, even though his Spark recoils from the sight of Wing smiling down at him, as long as there is energon…

            It comes to him slowly, and far too late for him to do anything about it. Drift summons all of his discipline, shaking off the swamps of contentment, and pulls his mouth away from the cut energon line in Wing’s forearm. That was the taste he recognized: energon already filtered through an intake. It should disgust him, and it will later, but at the moment he is too glad to be alive.

            Wing doesn’t seem to care that energon still drips from the cut line. “There you are,” he croons. “Why do you do this to yourself, Drift?” His thumb sweeps a stray droplet from Drift’s chin, as though he is a sparkling. “It’s all right now. I’m here.”

            He conjures a cube from subspace and tips it to Drift’s mouth. It’s _strong_ , flight-grade, but Drift is too weak to do anything but swallow while Wing sings softly to him. The flight-grade energon would be too much for his systems on a good day. Now that he is recovering from energon deprivation, it’s like taking three shots of Nightmare Fuel in a row. Wing’s hypnotic song isn’t helping. Halfway through the cube Drift turns his head away, and a bit spills down his neck.

            “No more,” he murmurs. Wing breaks off his singing to sigh reproachfully.

          “Drift,” he says patiently, his tone lamenting just how _unreasonable_ Drift is being, “we _just_ had this lesson…”

            Drift practically scrambles to grab the cube as Wing shifts as though to get up. The memory of starvation is still raw and vivid. “I’m sorry,” he blurts. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.” He takes another gulp, on his own this time, even though his processor is already hazy with overcharge.

            Wing smiles.

            “I forgive you.”

            By the time the cube is mostly empty, Drift’s processors are reeling. His unsteady hands keep letting energon drip onto his neck and chest until Wing takes the cube and helps tilt the last few drops down Drift’s intake. Wing shakes his head—Drift thinks so, since his optics are fritzing again—as he sets the empty cube aside.

            “You shouldn’t waste energon,” he says, leaning down. His glossa slides over Drift’s overcharged circuits, lapping up the spilled flight-grade one drop at a time. Drift tilts his head back against the berth, exposing his throat to the dangerous pressure of Wing’s fangs as he works his way down.

            Wing’s energy field shivers over his, waves of suggestion and need, and the jet squirms on top of him—when did he get there?—in a way that makes Drift groan.

            “Drift,” Wing whispers, his hips rolling against Drift’s panel, his clever fingers stroking Drift’s finials. “Please, Drift? I need you.”

            As overcharged as he is, it’s not hard to get Drift’s panel open. Wing chirrs in pleasure, one hand running along the length of Drift’s spike while the other strokes Drift’s cheek. Then Drift’s spike is enveloped in warmth as Wing sinks down onto him, purring. Wing kisses him soundly and Drift can taste energon on his lips from where he’s been chewing on them in excitement.

            “Drift,” Wing moans happily, rocking up and down. His subvocs, harmonics, and energy field all share the same obsessive focus, and all of that attention on _him_ makes Drift whine and arch upward, thrusting towards Wing’s movement. The jet’s claws scrape glyphs into Drift’s chestplate, sharp pain adding spice to Drift’s already addled processor, as he murmurs feverishly into Drift’s mouth. “Need you. Love you. _Mine_. Stay. Don’t leave me. Love you.”

            There is nothing but Wing, Wing’s voice and Wing’s energy field and Wing’s valve cycling down around him, Wing’s mouth on his and Wing’s hands teasing sensations out of armor that hasn’t been so intimately touched yet. With all his systems running hot on flight-grade, Drift is dizzy and lost, and clings to Wing as the anchor he needs, and Wing rides him until overload comes crashing through him and the world fades away.

            When he comes online, Wing isn’t there, but the glyphs he scratched into Drift’s paint are: _forever_.

 

* * *

 

            Drift grows used to waking up halfway through his recharge cycle to find Wing in his room, watching him with single-minded focus. Sometimes in the corner with his blades, sometimes at the foot of the berth, sometimes perched beside Drift’s head. After a while this no longer surprises him. He can even slip back into recharge with Wing watching. Sometimes Wing hums his lullabye, his claws tracing nonsense shapes on Drift’s finials. When he comes online in the morning it is always to some new word scratched into his armor like a mark of ownership. _Love you_ or _miss you_ or _mine_.

            He gets irritated when Drift buffs the scratches out—Drift onlines with Wing’s knees pinning his wrists to the berth as the jet refreshes his handiwork with excited focus, chewing on his own glossa to taste energon while he lovingly carves his designation into Drift’s armor.

            Drift has never seen Wing recharging.

 

* * *

 

            Each day they spar. Well, “sparring” is what Wing calls it, though Drift would gladly tear out his throat if he found the opportunity. Wing treats it like a game, though he must feel Drift’s murderous intent in his field.

            “I made you a deal,” he reminds Drift, even as he crushes him to the ground, his forearm pressed to Drift’s throat. “Every day until you learn, Drift. Remember?”

            That doesn’t stop him from casually slicing off Drift’s hand when Drift goes for the hilt of the sword on Wing’s back.

            “Not that one, Drift,” he admonishes gently as Drift screams. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt. It can be a bit… choosy. Maybe someday, if you’re very good, I’ll let you hold it. And if it likes you, it may even tell you its name.”

 

* * *

 

            Drift’s second escape attempt is just as unsuccessful as the first. Wing knocks him out and drags him back by the collar fairing. Drift onlines in a black mood, and comes up swinging at Wing’s smile. His movement is made clumsy by the jet straddling his hips, and Wing ducks easily to one side. Drift tries to shout at him, and only then discovers the gag thrust between his dentae, reducing his words to angry growls.

          “This…” Wing stops Drift’s next punch with his hand, his smile turning into a snarl, “…this is _childish_ , Drift.”

            He twists at the wrong angle and Drift howls when his elbow pops out of joint. It doesn’t stop him from thrashing. Wing pulls one of his longer knives in a cold flash and drives it into Drift’s shoulder joint, pinning him to the berth. Drift throws his head back, voice breaking into static. Wing pulls a second knife and settles the tip against Drift’s opposite shoulder, tilting his head.

            “You’re impossible to live with when you get like this.”

            He slowly leans his weight on the knife, taking his sweet time pushing it inch by inch into Drift’s circuitry. Drift kicks uselessly, bucking and arching, but Wing keeps his perch. He throws his weight on the knife to drive it into the berth, and Drift is well and truly trapped. His shoulders are ablaze with pain. Wing inspects the energon on his fingers. He takes his time licking it away while Drift groans and heaves under him, his joints grinding. His hips rock with growing fervor, rubbing his panel against Drift’s, letting him feel the heat gathering in both of their systems. He is gnawing at his own mouthplates again, as he does when excited.

            Wing leans down to run his glossa along the rim of Drift’s mouth, spread open by the gag. “Why do you make me hurt you,” he moans, kissing Drift’s finials, optics, nasal ridge, mouthplates, his fingers mapping the new scars his blades left in Drift’s plating. Drift is shuddering in pain, and still his panel clicks open at Wing’s insistent touch. Wing makes a shockingly vulnerable sound as he slides onto Drift’s spike.

            “Love you,” he moans. “Drift. Mine. Yours.”

            Drift is too lost in the overwhelming mix of pain and pleasure to pay close attention, but he tags the words as important for later deep in his processor, before his higher functions begin to close down. He bucks, straining upward towards Wing as though that will help erase the pain in his shoulders.

            “Promise me you'll never leave,” Wing whispers, still riding in steady rises and falls. Around the gag Drift can only whimper. Wing kisses the corner of his stretched mouth. “You don't want to leave, do you? Do you, Drift?” He slides his claws under Drift's armor, plucking at fragile wires. Drift whimpers again, shaking his head desperately. “Good, Drift,” Wing moans on the first prickles of overload, nipping at Drift's mouthplates. “Mine. You're mine. Forever.”

            His claws tease the edges of Drift’s chestplate, dancing along the seams. That faint, suggestive touch drags Drift out of his haze and he wrenches against the blades pinning his shoulders, sending a fresh wash of energon trickling down onto the berth. No matter _how_ far gone he is, no matter _how_ the jet feels riding him like this, he is _never_ going to open for Wing. Not like that.

            “Mine,” Wing pants. “Show me, Drift.”

            Drift shakes his head again, bucking. Wing’s claws edge under his chestplate and begin to pry.

            “I love you, Drift,” Wing coaxes. “Don’t you love me? I don’t want you to get hurt, Drift, open for me.”

            Drift drags the fingers of his left hand—the right arm still lies useless and dislocated on the berth—down Wing’s arm, trying to strike him away. If anything, that seems to excite Wing further. His EM field spikes and his valve calipers cycle down tight, and in the same moment, he tears Drift’s chestplate away. Drift’s vision whites out. For a terrible disorienting moment he doesn’t realize that the keening assaulting his audios is his own scream. His left hand has dug five gouges into Wing’s armor, but the jet doesn’t seem to notice. His energy field ripples in genuine awe as the blue glow of Drift’s Spark reflects on his plating. He leans down to brush his mouthplates against Drift’s.

           “There, that wasn’t so bad,” he murmurs, rubbing the tip of one of Drift’s finials between his fingers. “Was it, Drift? So beautiful. I love you.”

            Drift’s vents stutter and sob, trying to cool his tortured systems. Wing’s hand brushes Drift’s Spark casing and Drift jolts, a whine of denial scraping from his vocalizer.

            “You won’t leave me, will you?” Wing whispers. He is still moving his hips—still, somehow—but Drift can only hurt. “You won’t. You won’t. Never. And I won’t leave you, Drift. I’ll be right here.”

            His claw traces shapes on Drift’s Spark casing. Even the lightest scratches have Drift twisting and whining in pain.

            “Shh,” Wing soothes. “Hold still, love.”

            He sings then, softly, while Drift gasps and whimpers and cries out as Wing’s claw carves loving glyphs into the most fragile and vulnerable plating in his body. His lullabye is all Drift can cling to through the pain, following its familiar notes, and he catches his vocalizer pressing out notes of its own, following brokenly along.

            Wing’s voice trembles and his claw presses slightly harder as he overloads, his excess charge stinging and burning through Drift. The charge puts Drift through a significantly less pleasant type of sensory overload as his processor forces a hard reboot.

            When he comes back online, his panel is shut, the gag is gone, and Wing’s long knives are lying next to him, still wet with energon. Wing’s lips brush over each carved line in his Spark casing, his field flickering softly, sated for now.

            “There you are,” he says when he sees Drift’s optics light up. “I missed you.”

            Drift has nothing to say and no energy to do more than lie there as Wing nicks an energon line in his forearm and offers it to him. He doesn’t resist—energon is energon—and slowly his strength returns. His entire upper half still burns.

            “We don’t have to spar today,” Wing whispers, stroking his finials with his free hand. “Is that all right? We can wait. You’ve done so well. So, so well.”

            Drift’s hand edges towards Wing’s long knives, but he barely has the strength to grasp one. Wing’s hand settles over his.

            “You heard me, Drift. No more fighting today.” He rises with all his usual grace, taking the knives with him as he goes. “Stay, Drift. I’ll call Redline.”

            As the jet goes, Drift lifts his head enough to see Wing’s designation carved in the clear casing, just over his Spark.

 

* * *

 

            When Wing kisses him, Drift bites back, his sharp new fangs drawing energon up from Wing’s mouthplates. The jet melts, draping his arms over Drift’s shoulders and scraping his claws over his back.

            “Oh, Drift,” he says. “You’re learning.”

            _Yes._ Drift files the information away. Wing’s first weakness. _I am._

 

* * *

 

            Things have changed. Drift nurtures the bright point of fire in his Spark, the ache that persists in his casing, draws strength from it. He hates Wing, and loves him, and fights him and frags him, and recharges knowing he’ll have sweet endearments carved into him when he onlines, and that Wing will smile and say “I missed you.” Drift believes him, as he believes that Wing loves him, deeply, obsessively, and that will be the only weapon Drift can use against him. A double-edged sword.

            He will escape this place, and he will tear down the entire Circle of Light on his way if he has to. Wing included.

 

* * *

 

            Drift is getting cannier, Wing is getting complacent, or both. Either way, Drift leaves the dark city a third time. This time he has a destination.

            “I’ll cut you a deal,” Drift says, baring his new fangs in a grin. “I give you the Circle of Light, and you give me transport off this rock.”

            The aliens twitch and shift. He can almost see the petty thoughts running through their slow organic brains. The Circle of Light. The largest share of the slave trade in this corner of space, a feather in the Galactic Council’s frankly ridiculous hats. Drift doesn’t care about any of that. He’s leaving this place, by whatever means necessary.

 

* * *

 

            Wing has become so confident in him, so convinced that Drift is his and his alone, or perhaps Drift has learned more here than he cares to admit, that it takes surprisingly little convincing to lure the Circle into an ambush. In the heat of battle, nobody notices that the Council’s mercs avoid engaging Drift, leaving him free to finally do what he’s been dreaming of for weeks.

            For an instant, Drift hesitates. Wing is—Wing is _beautiful_ in that moment, his energy field surging hot with glee, the sun glinting on the lines of his armor.

            The moment passes, and Drift makes his move. His hand closes around the hilt of the sword on Wing’s back and he yanks it free. Wing stumbles, off-balance, his field spiking with surprise. And Drift… _feels_ something, a sudden tug at his Spark. There is a _presence_ here. Dark, ancient, malevolent, whispering to him with words he can’t understand.

            A presence, and a _name_.

            And he feels something else—he feels Wing, delight and cruelty and sudden surprise.

            It is partially Drift, partially the sword’s own longings, and he has never felt more right or more wrong as he strikes, just as Wing turns. Drift’s weight falls onto the hilt and the resistance gives way. Hot energon spills onto his hands as he drives the long sword in to the nexus, which flares wildly with red light. Wing gives a bewildered cry and an answer rips from Drift’s vocalizer. Through their mutual connection with the sword, it is as though they share the pain. But only one of them will die of it.

            Wing’s hands grasp at Drift’s arms, claws digging into his armor. He coughs and energon spills from his mouth, down his chin and neck.

            “Drift?” he gasps. His knees buckle and they both slide to the ground. Wing coughs again. Then he laughs, uncontrollable and half-mad, bringing his hands up to stroke Drift’s finials and pull him closer, close enough to nuzzle him. “Drift.” His thumb paints a glyph on Drift’s cheek, traces it over and over, weak and shaking. _Mine._ He presses their mouthplates together. Drift can taste energon. “Won’t… leave you.” One hand slips from Drift’s helm, lands on the hilt of the sword. “Fo-forever.”

            On impulse Drift wraps one hand around the back of Wing’s helm. He stares into the flickering purple light of Wing’s optics, and softly hums a few bars of Wing’s lullabye, their lullabye. Wing smiles. His hand falls from Drift’s face, smearing his glyph.

            In his hand, the sword glimmers and goes quiescent, and he swears he can feel it purring.

 

* * *

 

            “We owe you our thanks,” the alien says. “Drift, wasn’t it?”

            “Don’t need your thanks,” the red mech says, already turning away. “Just your ship. And it’s not Drift,” he tosses over his shoulder. That’s not who he is anymore. Luckily a new name blazes through his Spark with the thrumming of the long black sword on his back. He doesn’t think the sword will mind too much if he borrows it. “It’s Deadlock.”

            As he heads up the ramp, he whistles a few jaunty bars of a lullabye.


End file.
